


Pieces of the year, slivers on your tongue

by sophinisba



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Animal Death, Divorce, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-11
Updated: 2009-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victoire doesn't want to choose between her parents' languages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces of the year, slivers on your tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Benebu for spotting several mistakes in English as well as French. Please let me know if you find any others. This fic ignores interview canon that says Bill and Fleur have two more children after Victoire.

For as long as Victoire could remember they'd spent most of the year at Shell Cottage and a piece of it, usually in summer, at Les Dandelles. Even though all of life was magical, France was always more so, like a fairy land on the other side of dark water and white mist. A language that used to be a secret between _maman_ and _ma fille_ was now shared by a dozen aunts and uncles and cousins, and more strangers than she could count. In England people who loved her still struggled to pronounce her name; here it fit into a system of meaning, and it slid off their tongues like hope and joy.

Only Dad was left outside the circle, and not for lack of trying. Victoire knew that before she'd been born, and when she was very young, he'd put a great effort into learning the language. His French was never as good as the others' English, but he'd gone on speaking it, stubborn and still enamored of the first French girl he ever met.

But the year Victoire was four the Delacours had given her dad a pet, an African parrot named Marcel, who sat on his shoulder throughout his stay (except when he was alone with Maman) and spoke soft English into his ear or loud French into the air. They'd meant it as a help and gave it with good will, but to him it meant that his French wasn't good enough for them and never would be. They'd rather hear their language in the coarse voice of an animal than in the foreign accent of their son-in-law.

When the Weasleys went back to England Marcel would go into Maman's garden greenhouse and eat fruits. Victoire tried going to visit him and talking to him, but he wouldn't answer. He wouldn't even repeat or translate her words. "It's nothing against you," her father explained, "it's that there's no need for it, and he must know that. Let's just agree that he's on holiday till next summer."

Sometimes Maman left for France earlier in the spring and sometimes she stayed on longer into the fall, and sometimes she made the voyage alone. And as Victoire got older she noticed that the piece of the year her parents spent apart got longer each year. Then, in the time they were all together, they talked less and less in each other's languages – only shouted or kept silence – though they always had a kind quiet word and a hug for their daughter.

The winter she was ten, they told her they didn't want to fight anymore, so from then on they'd each stay in their own country, and they wouldn't be married anymore. Victoire needed to choose a language, a country, a parent, and she needed to reject the other. She would still cross the water every year, but she'd be starting school next fall and it had to be Hogwarts or Beauxbatons, couldn't possibly be both.

That was the same winter Marcel died of old age. Since Dad wouldn't be going to France anymore and since the parrot had never had any personality of his own, no one but Victoire mourned him very much. She was the one who insisted on burying him under a blank round stone, next to the greenhouse, not far from Dobby's grave. The tears stung in her eyes and the winter wind carried away the words of thanks she spoke to him, in one language and then another. Her parents stood on either side of her and she held their hands, wishing she could just keep on like that, holding them together by strength of will, but knowing she could not.

She chose to live with her dad, not because she loved him more but because life at Shell Cottage was the harsher life, the wilder life, the one that felt like real life. And because she knew her mother would always be happy with her own parents back at Les Dandelles, but her father never felt quite right at the Burrow anymore, not since before she was born, before the attack that made him what he was. He needed her, and she would stay.

But she needed her parents too, and she never realised just how cold and lonely her house could be until there were only two of them to keep each other warm.

One night she dreamed of howling wolves and woke up calling for her mother in her mother's tongue. The same confusion had come over her before – at the dull edge of sleep her brain couldn't tell which language was which – but in the past her mother had always been there to help her sort it out.

That night her dad came, turned on the light, and told her it would be all right, but the howling wind outside the cottage walls and the deep shadows under his eyes made it hard for her to believe him. They both knew she wouldn't fall asleep again soon, so they went to the kitchen and made hot cocoa. That was the first time she asked him, "Would you speak to me in French, Daddy?"

"Me? I don't know if that's such a good idea."

"Please?" She didn't want to cry. She was supposed to be helping her dad, but she was too tired tonight. "Elle me manque. J'ai besoin de maman."

"I miss her too, but I'm not the one to help you with this."

"If you don't keep up with a language you lose it, you know. I don't want to go back to Les Dandelles and find out I can't talk to her anymore."

"Oh, Victoire." He hugged her, and for a long time he said nothing, but when he said, "Ça n'arrivera jamais," she knew he'd just needed the time to think how to say it. That will never happen. We will _always_ be there for each other. She hugged him back and believed it was true.


End file.
